


Ghosts' Stories

by rayemars



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 14:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayemars/pseuds/rayemars
Summary: The morning it all starts, one of the sophomores comes into the kitchen and tells Kent there's a ghost in the exercise room. Kent assumes it's a mistranslation--even if "ghost" is a weird thing to mistranslate for "rat" or "water leak”--and goes to check it out.There is, in fact, a ghost in the exercise room.





	Ghosts' Stories

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for the tagged referenced violence and rape, and for “trans panic” as a horseshit excuse for murder.  
> ~

The morning it all starts, Kent's barely arrived at the clubhouse from his pre-practice skate. He and Boxy're still putting together breakfast when one of the sophomores comes into the kitchen. "Captain?"

That's never great, when he gets called that instead of 'Parse.' "'Sup?"

"Is ghost in workout room," Boar replies.

Kent finishes pouring his coffee. "...Okay."

Boar leaves. Kent raises an eyebrow and looks over at Boxy.

"Nope," their goalie says. "It's fuckin' weird enough bein' in this half-right world, you're on your own."

"You suck, man," Kent replies, grabbing a couple paper towels to cover his plate. Nobody knows where all the flies are coming from lately, but there's no getting rid of them no matter how many fly strips the maintenance staff hang up.

"Try not to get possessed," Boxy replies. "The ambiguity's a bitch."

"Language, Box." Kent leaves his breakfast on a table, takes his coffee with him, and heads out to check on the problem.

There is, in fact, a ghost in the exercise room.

Kent's not sure what exactly he thought Boar was mistranslating as 'ghost'--rat? water leak?--but it is an actual fucking ghost, which. Is messing with Kent's general understanding of the nonexistence of an afterlife and also just his general understanding of metaphysics and physics in general.

He takes a long drink of coffee even though it's still way too hot. The woman looks at him.

"Hey," Kent says. Ow, ow, ow, burned the roof of his mouth. "You know we're--this club's like. Seven years old, right? You sure you don't belong in...I dunno. L.A.? Maybe Phoenix?"

"Who're you?" she asks.

"Kent Parson," he answers. "You're, uh. In the Las Vegas Aces clubhouse."

"The what?"

Ouch. "Vegas' hockey team."

She frowns. "We have a hockey team?"

"Since '09, yeah." Wait, how old is this ghost? Her clothes look pretty contemporary. "2009."

"Oh." She looks around the room. "Why am I here?"

"Uh." Kent has no idea what proper ghost protocol is, but it probably doesn't involve telling them they're dead. "Dunno."

"I don't want to be here," she says. The skin of her nose scrunches up in an expression of real hate, which abruptly tips this situation from weird to creepy. Kent takes a step back. "I wasn't--we were--"

And then she disappears.

Kent gets out of there.

*

Four different guys and seven members of the staff won't set foot in the exercise room after the news spreads around the clubhouse. The front office sets up a smaller area with some equipment and spends a lot of time wrangling with a couple churches in an effort to get someone to come do an exorcism.

*

A week later, the ghost returns. Kent learns about it when he hears Chazzer yell loudly; he's coming down the hall when the other man runs out of the dressing room and then yanks off his crucifix and throws it back inside.

"Jesus," Kent says, heading past and going into the room. But maybe that'll work? Who knows, once he had to accept that ghosts were real pretty much all bets were off.

The woman's standing in the middle of the dressing room. She's still wearing the same sparkly halter top and floofy skirt as the last time Kent saw her, hair down in the same thick brown waves and covering half her face; but she looks furious.

" _Why am I here?!?_ " she screams when Kent comes into the room. "Where's Janelle, where'd he fucking take her? What the _**fuck**?!_" and then the lights explode.

"Shit!" Kent covers his head with his arms and runs back out of the room, nearly crashing into Chazzer.

*

The club rearranges their practice schedule. The team starts holding meetings and working out in the practice arenas, not in the clubhouse.

*

They lose four games straight. In the last one, Swoops goes onto the injured roster after he blocks a shot and ends up breaking two bones in his hand.

The guys almost unanimously vote to return to the clubhouse. Ghosts don't trump superstitions.

The club still can't get a priest to come out and do an exorcism--'insufficient evidence' or whatever--but Chazzer brings about a gallon of holy water he collected from his church and sprinkles it around the exercise and dressing rooms. Vichy gives him shit, but like. The maintenance guy had to vacuum plastic and glass from the exploded lights out of the dressing room carpet for almost an hour. Kent figures if it works, fuck it.

*

Two days later, one of the rookies finds the ghost sitting in the hallway between the dressing and exercise rooms, face pressed into her knees and sobbing.

Pits tries to talk to her, explaining that her body's time has ended but if she can tell them why her spirit's still trapped they'll try to help; but she just keeps crying and crying and crying and then finally disappears.

*

Several days later, they're in the middle of a roadie. Kent's catching up on a back issue of Gay Vegas on his tablet while he's alone in his hotel room, when he sees a short article about four Latina women found killed in a rural area outside Vegas, allegedly by a former border patrol officer. One of them was a transwoman named Janelle Luera.

"Shit," Kent says quietly.

*

Admin staff still saw the ghost while the team was away, but only occasionally. All the guys have a discussion during the flight to Vegas and finally decide to try and keep using the clubhouse. Nobody wants to go on another four-game skid.

*

The next morning, Kent goes to the clubhouse even earlier than usual, and then goes into the exercise room. "Hey, uh. Ma'am? When you said 'Janelle' earlier, did you mean Janelle Luera?"

No answer.

Kent asks the same thing again in the hallway, and then in the dressing room. No answer.

He changes into his workout clothes while he's in there, glad that at least he was here early enough that nobody was around to hear him being a dumbass. He leaves, passing by Nick sharpening skates in the hall outside, and starts for the exercise room. When he turns the corner, the ghost's standing in front of the door.

Kent lifts a hand carefully in greeting, because she's flickering. Which is--probably not great, fuck. He didn't plan this well.

"How do you know Janelle?" the woman asks.

"I saw an article about her," Kent replies, thinking _Shit shit shit_. "She . . . she was killed. Last month.

"I'm sorry," Kent tells her. "I'm pretty sure you were, too."

The woman stares at him, still flickering.

Kent asks, "Can we help find yo--?"

Every light in the building shuts off. Behind him, Nick yells in pain.

Kent stumbles backward around the corner. Even the emergency lights are out. It's almost pitch black. His watch is fried.

Kent feels along the wall, tripping over equipment and other supplies cluttering up the sides of the hallway, until he runs into Nick. The man's staggering toward one of the exits and holding his arm to his chest.

Kent wraps an arm around Nick's shoulders and starts helping him out of the building. He can hear more people in the stairwell to administration, calling something about phones and flashlights not working.

The fire alarm goes off. And then the sprinklers.

*

The fire department comes and puts out the electrical and mechanical fires. Nick gets taken to the hospital to be treated for the second-degree burns he got when the skate sharpener exploded. Kent gives his statement to the police along with everyone else, leaving out the whole caused-by-a-ghost part; and then he repeats it with the relevant ghost info for the GM.

Impey looks exhausted, which seems fair after the past month. "You're sure it was her?"

"No," Kent answers. "But I dunno what else it'd be."

Impey snorts a half-hearted laugh, and then rubs his face hard with his hands. "...All right."

He stands up and nods once before heading over to the team president. "Thanks, Kent."

"Yeah."

*

The team is temporarily-permanently moved into their practice facility in North Las Vegas, until they can get an assessment on the structural damage to the clubhouse.

*

The next day after practice, Kent makes Vichy go back to the clubhouse with him, because admin still can't convince a priest to come here and they really need to deal with this before anything gets worse.

Vichy still thinks this whole ghost thing is horseshit, but Kent insists. He might need somebody to drive him to the hospital if things break bad again. Scrappy comes along too, because frankly at this point Kent's not going to turn down a backup-backup car.

"Seriously," Vichy says, as they're heading for the parking lot. Kent told them to park a block away, just in case. He's not sure what the ghost's range is anymore. "Ghosts aren't real."

Kent made Vichy and Scrappy leave their phones in their cars, too. Kent's own phone is currently getting repaired, same as his watch, because it was completely dead when he was finally able to get it out of the dressing room yesterday. No amount of charging fixed it.

Everybody else who was in the clubhouse that morning had the same problem with their own phones. And laptops. And any other electrical stuff with them. They were lucky nobody had a Pacemaker.

"Yes they are," Scrappy says patiently.

Vichy pinches the bridge of his nose. "This is bullshit. Seriously. Metaphysical, superstitious bullshit."

"The fuckin' **irony** ," Kent drawls. " _You_ bashin' superstition."

"Ghosts are real," Scrappy repeats. "Just 'cause your dumb ass didn't see it don't change that."

"I know it's been weird, but--"

"A building caught fire around me," Kent says flatly. "Ghosts are real, fine, whatever. I just wanna _fix_ this already."

Vichy huffs, but shifts the heavy-duty flashlight he's holding to his other hand.

"Are we allowed back already?" Scrappy adds, eying the building.

Kent shifts the strap of the duffel he's carrying further up his shoulder. It's full of candles, just in case the ghost messes with the flashlight. "That's why we're going in the back."

The back exit's locked and chained. Kent tries to get past it for a little while, and then finally gives up and breaks a window.

"Jesus!" Vichy jumps.

"They can add it to the insurance," Kent replies, knocking away more shards of glass with his elbow so he can reach up and undo the window latch.

He just barely manages to get inside and turn off the alarm before it switches over to alerting the police. Scrappy gingerly climbs in as he does, trying to avoid the glass on the floor.

"Oh my god," Vichy says wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose on the other side of the window.

Scrappy jerks his head toward the interior. "You're already an accessory, might as well get in here. I'll rat you out if you run."

"Fuck off, Jeff." Vichy balances the flashlight on the sill and climbs in.

The place still smells like smoke, and the gross humid stink of water damage in a closed building during high temperatures. Kent hopes it doesn't mold.

They find the woman in the hallway, just sitting there in the dark. Vichy recoils, but manages not to drop the flashlight. She's crying again.

"Hello," Kent says carefully.

Scrappy takes the flashlight from Vichy and holds it steadier, aiming it at the floor between them instead of directly on the woman. But Kent can still see her well enough in the reflected light. She looks up.

"I don't want to be dead," she says.

"I'm sorry," Kent replies, because there's nothing else really to say.

She pulls her knees closer to her chest and looks back down at them. ". . . I don't want to be dead."

"I'm sorry."

She starts crying harder.

Kent sets the duffel on the floor and sits down next to it. A few seconds later, the flashlight's beam shifts and sinks as Scrappy settles a little over and behind him.

For a long time, none of them say anything.

Finally--because sitting in a dark, burnt building near a crying ghost while Scrappy almost inaudibly fingers rosary beads behind him is honestly starting to freak Kent out more than he can handle--he offers, "They arrested him. The guy. They were talking about trying him as a serial killer."

After a long moment, the woman snorts harshly.

"Won't do shit," she says, lifting her head and staring at Kent. She shakes her hair over her shoulder as she does, and for the first time Kent can see her full face. The good side of her mouth's peeled back in a sneer; the bad side was beaten in hard enough to cave her cheekbone and eye socket. One or both of the guys swear behind him. Kent can see some of her shattered teeth as she starts flickering again and spits, "Couple more dead druggie whores, nobody'll do **_shit_**."

 _Oh fuck_ , Kent thinks, and _Don't puke_ and _Shoulda come alone shouldn't've put the guys at risk_ and _Focus_.

"Can we help find you, miss?" Scrappy manages.

"Yeah," Kent adds, latching onto that. "If we can bring your body back, that could be more evidence. Fingerprints, or. Uh. DNA. It'd be more proof."

She swallows hard, which looks--Kent has to fold his hands into his lap and grip them tightly, trying to push away the abrupt memory of the time he got beat up and kicked around in a back alley once for pool sharking. What an ugly, shitty way to die. He hopes it was fast, at least. That she got knocked out right away. Fucked up a wish as that is.

"I'm sorry," Kent tells her again. "About you, and Janelle. But--this is all we can do. Now."

She clenches her elbows tighter, pressing her face back against her knees. The flashlight beam flickers.

Kent shifts a hand behind his back and gestures sharply for Scrappy and Vichy to get the hell out of here while the ghost's distracted. Who knows how long they've got.

A couple seconds later, one of them punches him in the back. Kent forces himself not to make a face.

So it's three idiot hockey players, sitting in a charred building they broke into, in the dark, with an angry ghost they tried to pacify and just made angrier because Kent has no idea what he's doing and Scrappy and Vichy are too stupid to ditch him. When the Aces run the memorial for them on the Jumbotron, Kent hopes it has more to it than just 'These dumb fuckers.'

\--That joke's not as funny as he was hoping, under the circumstances. Fuuuuuuck.

As he's swallowing to try and fix his dry mouth, Kent notices that the ghost isn't flickering as much.

It takes a long, long, like nerve-wrackingly long time, but eventually she stabilizes. She starts to raise her head again, and then pauses and pulls her hair back over the kicked-in side of her face.

". . . Okay," she says quietly. Kent jumps a little at the sound. He's been tense for so long.

The woman breathes out slowly, and then lifts her head. "Okay."

She stands, and then looks down and brushes off her skirt. "...Okay."

She keeps staring at the floor as they get to their feet as well. "I don't.... We used to be by Trop, but then we came here. I dunno it so well."

"Were you--" and then Vichy's voice cracks. He pauses and swallows, too; when he speaks again, he sounds a little steadier. "Were you staying above ground? Or in the tunnels?"

"Tunnels."

"Do you remember the street name?" Vichy tells her the cross-street their building's on and asks if that was it.

"Yeah. Off it."

"Probably the storm drain," Vichy mumbles, voice dipping. Kent shifts to the side so he can finally look at the guys again without actually putting his back to the ghost. Vichy's glancing behind them, in the direction of the drain out past their parking lot.

"Do you know how far in you were?" Vichy adds, looking back at her but still clearly not quite _at_ her. "Or. Remember any graffiti?"

She shakes her head, then pauses. "...Not.... I don't think that far in? At least, not before...."

She doesn't exactly flicker this time; it's more like a static-y shudder, which is still pretty freaky.

"He said he'd let us go," she mutters. "If we sucked him off. You know." She makes a dismissive gesture. "But while I was...he was all gropey, and Janelle--she hadn't had surgery, you know," she says, pointing at her crotch. "When he found out, he just...."

"That 'gay panic' bullshit?" Kent sneers, with more intensity than he intended. His fingers curl in.

She chuckles once, humorlessly. "Yeah.

"He yanked my hair real hard after that, off his dick, and I. I don't. I think I hit my head? I don't know what--after that--" She reaches up and touches the broken side of her face through her hair. The shuddering's getting worse.

"I'm sorry," Kent says again, sincerely. He starts to reach out to her, then stops.

He _is_ sorry, but. Touching somebody that's dead, somebody that died like that, that died **because** of some asshole like that....

He can't. He can't do it. If he does, he'll always wonder if he's touched a potential future.

The corner of her mouth twitches in a forced smile, before she glances up at him again. "Thanks."

"Do you...what's your name?" Vichy asks, as Scrappy grips Kent's shoulder for some reason. "Who's your family, we can contact--"

"Don't," she says. The shuddering's really bad now; the flashlight's flickering again. Kent stumbles as Scrappy pulls him back. "I can't, I don't--I don't **want** to remember--

"Go away," she tells them, gripping her arms and curling in on herself. "I don't want to--go away." She crouches down on the floor again; and then the flashlight goes out. "I didn't want to _**die**!!_"

They run.

Kent hears her crying as they fumble their way back to the exit with his lighter. He forgot the candles back in the hall. The sound never fades; it gets louder instead, louder and longer and harsher even as he climbs out the window, an endless scream of misery that makes him want to vomit.

Vichy grabs him as he scrabbles over the windowsill, catching Kent before he falls onto his knees on the blacktop. Scrappy grabs both of them by their shirts and drags them farther away from the building. He doesn't let go until they reach their cars.

It's hot out. It's bright. It's so hot, he didn't realize how cold he was before. It's so bright again, finally.

Kent slumps against his car, resting his forehead on the roof. It burns, but he was so cold. He folds his arms on top of it too.

Scrappy pulls him back, away from it. Kent shivers hard.

"Oh my god." Vichy sits down on the sidewalk. "What the _fuck_."

"Yeah," Scrappy says. "We--we call GM? Police? GM, GM is right-- **Parse**."

Scrappy drags him off the car again. Kent shoves him away. " _Quit_ it. I'm cold."

Scrappy stares at him for a long moment. Vichy pushes back onto his feet, looking concerned.

And then Scrappy swears a lot in Italian, and pulls a necklace out from under his shirt.

He forces it on over Kent's head. Kent makes a face and looks at the front picture hanging from it, as Scrappy shoves the other piece of cloth down the back of his shirt. "What the--"

"Don't you fuckin' take that off," Scrappy orders, taking the picture out of his hand and pushing it under the front of his shirt. "Alright. Fuck it. You two, in back," he says, pulling out his keys and unlocking his car. "Vich, you no let him take it off. Don't say _shit_ about metaphysical bullshit."

Vichy mutters something in Italian, and then pushes Kent into the car.

*

Scrappy drives them to a church and then makes Kent cross himself with holy water while Vichy calls the GM, which. Kent just spent who knows how long talking to a ghost, and **he'd** be telling Scrappy this is metaphysical bullshit if years of media training and being the Aces' captain hadn't ingrained in him to never insult someone else's religion.

But still. Bullshit.

He doesn't feel cold anymore, though. Or he does, but it's just because the church is air conditioned. Not like earlier.

Fuck it, whatever. Fine. Life is weird. Sometimes guys get stuck to the Cup if they mess up the rules. Curses are real. Ghosts obviously exist. Water can be blessed. Fine. Kent's super done with all this shit right now.

*

They have a very quiet meeting with Impey in a back pew of the church, at Scrappy's insistence.

Impey's a little pissed that they broke the window, and really pissed that the three of them put themselves at risk like they did; but he takes down notes of everything they got out of the ghost. Kent promises to send Impey a screenshot of the article he read about Luera once he gets home and back to his still-functioning tablet. It doesn't matter what magazine it's from; admin already knows he's gay, though Kent's still keeping that to himself with the team.

"Unless I'm just supposed to live here now?" Kent adds, looking over his shoulder at Scrappy. It feels better to fall into his usual habit of being sardonic than it does to have to think about the last couple hours. Weeks.

Scrappy punches him in the side harder than necessary. Kent makes a face and shifts further down the pew.

*

As they're leaving, Scrappy tells him to keep wearing the necklace when Kent tries to give it back. "I'll get it tomorrow, Parser. Keep it on."

*

He has nightmares every time he falls asleep that night.

Kent finally goes and lies down on his couch, turning on the TV and curling up under a blanket with Purrs. He holds on tighter every time the cat tries to squirm out, until Purrs finally bites him to escape.

*

The next day, Kent, Vichy, and Scrappy each get called into admin's new makeshift office and told to pay the fine for breaking the club's ban on ghost hunting.

"...Okay," Kent says, looking at the ban sheet and then back at the head of HR. "But like. You know that wasn't on here last week?"

Girner--who, like almost every other member of the front office, has been working overtime to transcribe paper records into new computers to make up for all the data loss that occurred when the clubhouse computers took water damage, caught fire, and/or had something happen that the technician the club contacted could only describe as "...Did an _EMP_ go off in here?"--gives him an empty stare.

"Gotcha," Kent says, and then he shuts his mouth and signs the agreement to have the $5,000 fine subtracted from his next paycheck.

*

The next day, the team heads out on a new roadie. A crew that was examining the sewer tunnels beneath the Aces' clubhouse as part of the damage review--nobody goes into details about _what_ that examination was supposed to do, but whatever, Kent knows better than to ask questions--finds the body of a woman and contacts the police.

Pits and Korsy and Scrappy harangue everybody into pitching in to pay for a decent funeral, once the body's finished with whatever process of autopsy and submission as criminal evidence it has to go through in an attempt to get some justice in this world.

*

Kent keeps having nightmares.

*

By the end of the roadie, whenever he and Vichy have connecting doors between their rooms, they've started leaving them open.

It doesn't stop Kent's stress dreams; but it helps him fall asleep faster afterward.

It helps him pretend he isn't hearing someone say _You know how it would have felt_ right before he wakes up, every time.

Kent pulls the blanket off the other bed and drags it over to his own. He curls back up under it, readjusts the scapular Scrappy's still saying he'll 'get tomorrow,' shuts his eyes, and tells himself _No I won't_.

 _I won't die like that_.  
  
  


Comes down to luck, really.


End file.
